“Hey ass-hole,” someone said as I dodged past store management and swooped in on her table. Several other people grumbled while a woman stated the obvious, that I’d cut everybody in line.
“Did you see that? That man just cut us in line!” The woman said.
“Well if it isn’t the son of a preacher man.” Ellie scrolled her eyes up from the table where she’d just finished shaking hands and personalizing a signature with a heavyset woman. “Are you finally crossing over to the dark side and joining the powers of atheism? Unlike the devil, we can’t promise you fame, fortune, or longevity, but we can point you into the direction of intelligence.”
“Did you know?” I said.
“Did I know what?” She twisted her face.
“Did you know my wife was… seeing someone… while I was gone?”
“Joshua.” She leaned in, speaking at a whisper (and perchance amused). “You look angry.”
“You think?”
“And you’re making a scene.”
Several people grumbled in line, including store employees, followed by an overlapping river-like current of whispers and gossip. I probably didn’t have long before someone snatched me away or tackled me to the floor.
“I want to know about Elise. Did she confide in you? Did you…. encourage her?”
“Joshua. This isn’t the time or the place.”
She was right. It wasn’t. I knew it then. And I didn’t care.
“It never is, Elizabeth.” I lowered my voice, scanning the room for the hint of security. A few employees were alert to my presence but dreadfully slow to act. “And I want to know.”
“I’m not accountable to you for Elise’s decisions.”
“So you do know about it then.”
“Of course I do. I’ve known about it for weeks. And I would even go so far as to say the same for her; she’s not accountable to you.”
“She’s my wife.”
“This isn’t the dark ages. You don’t own her.”
“I rather thought you might say that.”
The stirring of gossip mixed with slurs of genuine concerns had magnified. I thought I might have even heard a bookstore employee instructed to pick up the phone and call the police, but I wasn’t sure. And I didn’t care. If only I’d drowned in the Jacuzzi or fallen for Lionel’s adorable trap and given him a belly rub. My entire world had come to an end, again.
“Joshua. I can smell the alcohol.” Aside from a calm demeanor and unusual professionalism, Ellie sounded genuinely concerned, not at all what I’d come prepared for. Actually, now that I thought about it, I wasn’t even sure why I came at all, if not to burn a bridge or two. “The last thing someone like you needs is a night in prison, especially if you’re contracted for a photo-shoot in the morning.” She forced a smile. “For the life of me I can’t figure out why, but you’re very important to a lot of people.”
I gathered that last part was a sarcastic attempt at friendliness.
“I don’t have a gig until next weekend.”
“I see. Have you been drinking?”
I opened my mouth to answer her when someone let his or her fingers clasp into the meaty area surrounding my collarbone. A fifty-something year old man, and in good physical condition for his age, stood at my side. I was pretty sure it was the store manager.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”
“It’s OK,” Ellie said. “He’s with me.”
I opened my mouth again, but only because I was shocked. And here I’d imagined the naked atheist conniving like Uncle Screwtape into Elise’s ear.
“This man cut in line and he’s causing a disturbance, and…” The manager lowered his voice. “He reeks of alcohol. Not exactly store protocol.”
“That may be so. But he’s in my protocol. Joshua here is my best friend’s husband. He was confused, he arrived with a question, and I believe he got what he came for.”
Her eyes widened with all intensity and purpose.
“Yes,” I said. “I believe I have.”
The store manager’s fingers remained on my shoulder.
“I guess it’s time for you to leave, then,” he said.
His hand led the way.
“No wait.” Ellie stood up. “I’ll see him out personally.”
Ellie wasn’t one to take no for an answer, much like her book deal. She led me towards the back door, assuring management that I meant her no physical harm. Management followed anyways, keeping within reasonable distance. I didn’t blame him. I would have wanted the same precautionary measures if I were in the author’s shoes.
“Good job.” She finally grinned before reaching for the door (marked EMPLOYEES ONLY). “You made yet another exemplary use of religion-by-force, and in front of so many atheists. You can thank me for showing you some grace later.”
“Wow, an atheist who answers to grace. Welcome to the higher calling.”
“You’re one to talk.” She wasn’t kidding.
“I am sorry. I’m a cats ass with the tail lifted.”
“No, you’re not a cats ass, just emotionally shipwrecked… and drunk.” She thought about it some more. “And an irrational religious thinker, and….”
“A hatred of God isn’t rational thinking, Ellie.”
“It’s impossible to hate a God that doesn’t exist, and besides, if a lover of mine cheated on me, I might just cut his balls off.” She said the last part gently as she touched my arm. The thought gave me chills but she apparently wanted our parting to end well. “And I’m sorry, Joshua. I can’t imagine how hard this must be on you. I know we haven’t always been close, especially ideologically speaking, but you’re very dear to Elise. And anything that Elise cares about, so do I.”
“Which means you care about this new…. man in her life…. don’t you?”
“Yes. I do.” She looked nervous saying it despite her firm demeanor. “He’s quite the catch. Maybe we’ll all laugh about it one day.”
“I’m not just another flavor of the month, Ellie.”
I tried not to cry. She noticed it too.
“Yes, I know. You’re anything but that.”
Then Ellie tried not to cry.
“If Elise and I can’t work this out, will you watch over this guy? You know, just in case he turns out to be a cats asshole with its tail lifted or something.”
“Like a narrow-minded religious asshole?” She squeezed my arm.
“No, more like an intellectual atheist asshole.”
“I will. Especially since I much prefer having the good ones all to myself.” She kissed me on the cheek. “But in the meantime, who is going to watch over you? Alcohol sure isn’t doing a very good job of it.”
“I guess I have God,” I said.
“Yes.” She patted the very cheek that she’d only seconds ago kissed, grinning. “Good luck with that.”
Light poured in as she opened the back door.
“Oh, and Joshua?”
I turned around.
“If you ever do that to me again, walk in on my friends and cause a scene, I’ll cut your balls off.”
13
When Michael heard the report about my rampage (I figure the naked atheist must have told Elise, who then called Susan up on the phone, who in turn informed her husband, our resident bartender), he helped himself into my apartment, found me lying in bed, and sighed.
“A little birdie told me that you like to visit bookstores.”
“I think reporters from channel 7 showed up. It will probably be on the news tonight.”
“You’re a wreck,” he said.
“I might have drunk a little Bourbon this afternoon.”
“You’re one of those guys who takes one drink and ends up crashing his car into a drug store.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Nothing we can’t fix.” He extended his hand. “Come on. Get out of bed. I’m not letting you out of my sight tonight.”
14
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There were maybe five stars in the sky that night, ten if you counted the satellites and the plane ascending to its elevated flight path. Susan had joined Michael and I at Bolsa Chica. Our sweaters were on and we hugged the fire drinking Coke Zero and bottles of water.
“Do you believe we’re alone in the universe?” I finally asked them, staring at Orion’s belt, which accounted for three of the five stars.
“I believe in God,” Susan said.
“And you don’t need to go so far as the cosmos to find Him,” Michael added to her thought.
“That’s not what I meant. We’re all Christians here.”
“Correction,” Michael interjected. “One Christian, one converted Catholic, and a Messianic Jewess. I’m always worried that we’re about to get slapped by a punch line whenever we’re together.”
Susan’s head fell into her fingers. “Michael, you are the punch line.” She sighed and turned to me. “You mean extra-terrestrial life?”
I nodded.
“I think science continues to prove the improbability of intergalactic space travel, even among super intelligent beings,” Michael said. “And if they were visiting earth, you’d think by now someone would know about it. I find it very difficult to believe that all the conspiring governments of the world find one mutual thing to agree on, despite radically conflicting agendas: keeping it quiet.”
“So you’re saying there’s nothing else out there.” I looked to the five lonely stars and imagined the hundred thousand others hiding behind the electric fog of the city. It was probably just as well. I figured they were just as lonely.
“I don’t know if I agree.” Susan said. “God is an artist, and like any true artist, He can never be finished with his work. I think his creations will continue without end, and throughout eternity they’ll never cease to awe and inspire us.”
“So you’re saying there is something out there.”
“Yes.” She gazed into the flames.
“I don’t agree.” Michael interjected. “What you’re talking about is something else entirely. You’re talking about the potential for all sorts of parallel dimensions that we simply cannot see, like heaven. I’m talking about the vast emptiness of our galaxy and how we try to make sense of it by populating imaginary beings.”
“Well, I respectably disagree.” Susan told her husband. “I think God has something else out there, another beautiful super intelligent creature, and in time, if we’re patient, it will be revealed to us.”
“Maybe there’s a fish out there.”
“A fish?” Susan sighed with spousal sarcasm.
“Yes fish,” Michael said. “Millions of light years away, maybe there’s a planet with a fish or bacteria or single cells or something. I’ll settle on that.”
My eyes grew heavy and wet. I held the tears back.
“Can you be any more unsympathetic to Joshua’s line of questioning about us being alone in the universe?”
“So I take it we’re not actually talking about aliens,” Michael said.
“Oh, honey,” Susan laid her hand on his cheek. “I love you, but you can be a little slow at times.”
I wiped away a tear and sniffed.
“That’s ok, man,” Michael said. “Let it out.”
I let it out.
Susan cried. Michael’s eyes swelled up and even he cried. And then all three of us huddled in a group to have a good cry together. Elise was gone, the northern star and fourth corner of our circle. All that remained was the east, the south, and the west. And that, as we well know, is not a working compass.
15
On Saturday I called my mother on the phone to let her in on the news. Aristotle ran away.
“Oh, not again.” She sighed. “That dog of yours. Should I help you look for him?”
“No need. I already found him.”
“Oh,” she said.
I was hoping she’d ask if Aristotle was the real reason why I called. She didn’t. I was afraid if I went right out and said it that I’d cry. I didn’t want to tear up in front of my mother, even if it was over the phone.
“That’s not the actual reason why I called.”
“Oh? Is everything OK? Are you sick? Should I take you to the doctor?”
“Elise ran away, mom.”
Tears formed in my skull. I held them back. My voice throbbed.
“Your wife ran away? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Have you heard of such a thing?” She spoke now to someone else in the room. I suspected it was my grandmother. I heard the unmistakable ring of her hearing aid.
And then it registered. Mother’s mouth hung open. I knew this because of the long trail of air that she breathed into my receiver.
“Can you believe that?” She said to my grandmother. “Elise ran away with another man.” I couldn’t believe it. She was at my grandmothers, which meant she was in the lower apartment just across the courtyard.
“What?” I heard my grandmother’s voice. “Who ran away with another man?”
“Elise!” She spoke it louder this time. “Joshua’s wife, Elise! She ran away with another man!”
Now grandmother’s mouth gapped open. I knew this to be a fact because of the long-winded breath that drowned out her hearing aid, lifted across the room, sunk into mother’s speaker and carried all the way across town into my receiver. Except quite suddenly I wasn’t picking-up grandmother’s hearing aide in the phone anymore. It came from outside. And then within a moment Mom was standing on the iron balcony, peeking in, and banging on my door.
I sighed. I guess I wasn’t going to cry after all.
16
I woke up Sunday morning on a Protestant pillow, the same case of cloth that the likes of Luther, Melanchthon, and their Puritan friends fluffed theological pillows with, and then slipped from bed, laced-up Catholic marriage shoes, and made my way to the Saint Francis Parish.
“Are you sure you want to remain Catholic?” Mother whispered into my ear before the service could start. In the six years that Elise and I had been married, mother never visited. It’s a shame that it took my wife leaving me to convince her to come along. “It’s not too late to turn back, you know. I’m sure the Baptists will still have you.”
“Yes, mother, I’m certain. I didn’t think it would be fair for Elise and me to have two denominational beliefs in our marriage. Someone had to give.”
“If my church friends knew I’d come here with you, they’d probably revoke my membership in Dorcas.”
“There’s nothing quite like a mother’s love.”
“You know what they say about the pope in Dorcas, don’t you?”
“What mother?” I sighed, already knowing the answer.
“That he’s the false prophet of the beast. And Hillary or Obama, if either of them is elected this year, they’re the….”
“Please don’t say it, mother.” I interrupted her. “I’ve heard this before. Jimmy Carter was the anti-Christ. Dukakis was the anti-Christ. Bill Clinton was the anti-Christ. Every democrat is potentially the anti-Christ. Isn’t Ted Kennedy still in the running?”
“Yes, well…. it could happen.”
“Great, we may finally get our first black or woman president, and they’re the anti-Christ.”
“Prayer beads?” Mother frowned as she observed a woman kneeling before a statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus, with a coil clutched close to her soul. “Do you ever pray to the idol saints with those?”
“A rosary is basically a prayerful journey through several mysteries of our salvation with a lot of Hail Mary’s in-between.”
“That’s not in the Bible.”
“No.” I smiled. “I suppose not. But you know what is in the Bible. Women. Countless generations of them, women who change a man’s theology.”
She didn’t recognize the humor in my statement.
“Sola Scriptura, that’s what I believe,” She said it loud enough for patrons in the next several pews to hear. “As Luther first quoted, if it’s not
written in the Bible then you really shouldn’t attach yourself to it.”
“You know, you’re going about this wrong. Catholics believe in both apostolic oral and written traditions. So Sola Scriptura, as Protestants hail it, really doesn’t compute. They’d say your view is un-Biblical.”
Oh, she sighed, tucking hands over her lap for the arrival of Father Williams.
“Now a reading,” Father Williams told his parish congregation, “from the Book of Tobit.”
“Tobit?” Mother tightened the corners of her mouth. “That’s not in the Bible.”
17
After the service Father Williams headed up the greeting line from the steps of Saint Francis. He held my mothers hands and repeatedly patted them.
“So, you must be Joshua’s mother.” He smiled. “Your son has told me so much about you.”
“He has?” Mother beamed with delight.
“Yes. And we all love Joshua around here. He brings so much character to Saint Francis.”
“Aww, gee golly whiz, Father Williams.” I blushed, staring down at my feet, and twirled my toes on the steps.
“Despite the fact that he can be a little strange some times.” Father Williams finished his thought.
“Well, he sure was nice.” Mother said from the passenger seat as I drove her home.
“He certainly is. He’s down to earth, a man of the people, and his theological knowledge is outstanding. We meet at The Guide Dog every so often for drinks.”
“He drinks with you?” Mother frowned.
“Aside from communion? Sometimes.”
“Well, I can’t say I like that at all. He might as well be a drug dealer.”
“Mother, almost everyone drinks.”
She brought up the familiar allegory of jumping off a cliff because everyone else was doing it.
“Good point,” I said.
“And besides. The Baptists don’t drink.”
“I know. Jesus turned the water into wine and the Baptists turned it right back into water. That’s two miracles for the price of one.”
“Your father says it’s a translation error. He says it was really grape juice, and that’s why everyone praised him for bringing out the best tasting wine last.”
Wrong Flight Home (Wrong Flight Home, #1) Page 10